DS Intending to Enlist Instead

Just got back from the recruiter. We discussed the way forward (ASVAB, DLAB, picking MOS, contract, etc.) DS says he's 80% the way there to deciding upon enlisting now.

There is a lot of good advice in this thread. I've read it several times and will read it several times more and have DS read it.

I think it comes down to the fact that DS is absolutely against another four years of school at this point. He absolutely has no problem with a year at DLI. On the other hand, he feels strongly against ROTC-George Mason economics-Chinese double major right now. He doesn't want to hunch over textbooks for four years full time. Not now. Maybe later, but not now. Maybe if he's stationed at Ft. Meade he can commute over to Mason part time starting in just a couple of years.

So, we're looking at 6 years (I think 6 is required for an enormous enlistment bonus for 35P. Not sure). DS'll be only 23 when he finishes those 6 years (he turns 17 in a few days), and I imagine he'll have the better part of a degree finished.
 
I'm not saying the enlisted life is bad but in my experience I hear a lot more of, "I wish I would have commissioned instead" and "how should I get my commission" rather than "I wish I didn't commission and enlisted instead." Take that as you may. Either way, I'm sure you'll support his decision and that's the #1 thing after he's been aware of all the facts.
 
Thank you.

Sled, I think it's just that usually if a youngster has a choice of commission or enlistment, commission is the right choice. A no-brainer. But in my son's case, it's a little different, a little unusual, because ROTC would require he do something he strongly doesn't want to do right now. Most people would not find studying for four years to be not a big problem. But he does. He's an unusual case, I guess.
 
My DS has been waiting for the AROTC scholarship 2nd board results. But he is now intending to enlist in the Army instead when he graduates from high school in June. He hopes for MOS 35P (linguist) or second choice 35G (geospatial analyst). He'll be taking the ASVAB and DLAB ASAP (Feb, March) and ship not long after graduation. At least that's the plan that is taking shape right now. We're about to set the ASVAB/MEPS date with the recruiter. The DLAB comes later.

He just doesn't want to go to college right now. Profile: he turns seventeen in a few days. He's sharp as a tack and has a resume of significan work experience (farm labor, construction labor, restaurant work). But he's not very interested in school right now. He aced the SAT and will do very well on the ASVAB and DLAB. Of course, DLI is a year of school and it's a 50-hour week of studying, but he's okay with that. It's only a year, not a four-year slog. Plus he likes languages. He's had four years of high school Chinese and has taught himself a smattering of Dutch and how to pronounce Korean writing.

Maybe when he's twenty or so he'll start going to college part time while he's still serving. He has been accepted by George Mason for the fall. Maybe someday in the future if he is stationed at Ft. Meade he can commute to Mason part time.

In short, DS is about to turn down the AROTC scholarship, if lucky enough to be offered it, and enlist instead. I wonder how many people in our country's history have done that. It's a little odd, but I'm happy with it. Is there anything I should be aware of? There is a sense of "What the heck is my DS doing? Just accept the scholarship, son, and be resolved to study whether you like it or not!" Actually, I'm looking forward to watching move forward with the enlistment adventure he's about to embark on. But should he reconsider? There is a lot of wisdom in this forum for which I'm grateful, so I thought I'd post.

I’m applying to the Air Force Academy, but enlisted with the Navy as a backup this past Friday. He can enlist in the DEP while he waits for the AROTC results, and still choose between the two. If he gets an AROTC scholarship and chooses to do that, his recruiter is required to void his contract as that is an officer pipeline that ‘trumps’ his enlisted contract. However, linguist is definitely an awesome job. My contract with the Navy is CTI (cryptologic technician - interpretive), the Navy equivalent of 35P. With the Navy, you can apply for a program called STA-21 during your enlisted career. This program allows you to attend any university for three years (fall, spring, and summer semester) fully paid for, while receiving active duty pay. Following completion, you’re commissioned as an officer. The Army doesn’t have any programs that are directly similar to this, but they do offer many programs that are conducive to achieving your degree and commissioning if you’re okay with taking a little bit longer. I certainly do not think the pay scale should be the deciding factor - enjoying your career and being happy with your day-to-day is more valuable than that. Also, the signing bonuses and re-enlistment bonuses for 35P are pretty hefty.
 
If he comes to you in Nov. and says GMU was a mistake, than I am sure he can still enlist, and be AD within a few months.

Yes, and yes. Another thing that stuck out to me:

He aced the SAT
and
he turns seventeen in a few days

As in - a 1600? Is he tired of school because he's bored in school? How is he at taking orders when he KNOWS there's a better way to do it? He's a senior at 16? So he's an academic overachiever? Does he already have college credits? Could he be out in less than four years? How does he handle NOT being part of a peer group? At 17, he is going to be extremely young in today's active duty Army. When his work buddies all go out on Friday night, will he be happy being left behind with the games on his phone? It's one thing to take along a 20 year old as your designated driver, but a minor?

Yes, the military service is a shortcut way to adulting. But that doesn't make him one, in the eyes of his peers. I'd be worried about him being isolated, both by being younger ( a year or two is an eternity for an adolescent) and by having associated with college-bound kids all through high school.
 
I think for your DS enlistment is the way to go because of one statement you made:
because ROTC would require he do something he strongly doesn't want to do right now.

The fact is that many kids do not ever commission via ROTC and that's if this is the path they really want, your DS has his heels dug in saying this is something I really don't want. Chances of failure increase dramatically when they are forced to do something they have no desire to do in the 1st place.

Only you can tell if he is just burnt out from academics currently, nervous about going off to college and ROTC, or downright insistent to start his military career now. To me that is one of the big aspects it comes down to when making this huge decision. Is he running FROM something or running TOWARDS something?

I do have to agree with eljay60 about him being the youngest once he goes active duty, but on the flip side obviously since he is only turning 17 now as a senior he is obviously accustomed to being the youngest among his peers since the avg sr in hs would be turning 18 right now. However, it still will be a much different peer group that he will be entering in the military compared to HS or compared to the freshmen in college.

Since he is getting a signing bonus my suggestion would be have him take that money and place some into an IRA, and than place some more aside for him to cover the portion that TA does not cover, plus some to use so he doesn't have to take TA later on. He can start on his bachelors while active duty, this way if he decides to get out in 6 yrs. he will be pretty close to completing his degree, probably at least at an associates degree. The TA, at least for the AF runs concurrent with the commitment. For example, you owe 3 yrs back for the TA, he uses the TA until yr. 3, allowing him to still leave at the 6 yr marker. He than uses the additional money set aside to continue while still AD without the TA and the additional commitment.
~ His degree from UMD via the military(online or on post) is not going to ding him career wise because he will have that military experience, and probably a TS clearance which goes a long way with not only contractors, but govt agencies that are part of the alphabet soup here in NoVA (i.e. FBI, DoD, State, etc).

In essence if he does have a long term strategic plan regarding his future career, doing it right can place him ahead of his peers when he is 23. I have met enlisted members that did leave at 24 and stepped straight into their next career on par or ahead of their peers.

This is a hard place to be in, and I get it in a way. Our DS opted to go AFROTC(scholarship) over USAFA. Many posters thought we were crazy to support him. However, we knew our child, like you know yours. We knew that he was not running away from attending USAFA, but running towards AFROTC. We knew USAFA was not a good fit for him at that time in his life. He never would have been happy there, and in the end probably would have been part of the 20-25% that did not graduate. He had our total support because he came to his decision based on adult responses with a long term goal. It was not emotionally driven. It was fact driven. He wanted to be an AF pilot, but did not want to go to a school that is engineering curriculum driven. When he realized that he could become that AF pilot while obtaining a degree he desired (govt/politics) in a college setting he liked, it was clear to him AFROTC was the path. He is now a USAF pilot that can say he enjoyed his college career with no regrets.

I think in the end you have to say this is the decision, and don't look back, just forward.
 
Great points, eljay60. Thank you very much. Will give this some serious thought with DS. Going to move slowly here.

DS: He taught himself to read at 2-3 y.o. At kindergarten age we applied to a smart-kids private school (didn't end up sending him there) which required an IQ test for application. Cost us $250 bucks. The analyst gave him 151+ IQ. I think that might be a little high, but I know he's smarter than me. Anyway, he went to another school we liked better. He skipped 1st grade at the school's suggestion (in retrospect, probably a mistake.) Fast forward:he got V770, M750 on SAT, after studying for it only a few hours. He got a 5 on AP Calc AB, 4 on AP Chem, etc. and will finish high school with about 28 credits or so. He is not an academic overachiever because studying and turning homework in has been like getting teeth pulled for the last six years: not his cup of tea. Result: grades are just "okay". He is a well-balanced boy (Scout 1st Class, HS baseball team, HS cross country team, lots of hiking and backpacking, farm labor/construction labor/restaurant work on the resume, member of city astronomy club, etc.) He's not at all skewed towards books/academics. He picked George Mason economics out of considerable interest, but doesn't really want to go through with it now.

I think I'm going to print out this thread and laminate it when it finally ends. DS can read it years from now and laugh about it: "Boy did I make a mistake/do the right thing when I enlisted/went ROTC!" Thank you all again so very much for these insights and pieces of advice.
 
Great advice, Pima. Yes, in these sorts of situations, you have to make sure you're headed TOWARDS, not AWAY FROM something. Otherwise, you need to stay still and think for a moment. DS would LOVE ROTC, but it's the college books/classes grind that he doesn't want right now. He is definitely headed TOWARDS enlisting/35P/35G and so forth. Not quite there yet. We need to consider very carefully.

Pima: "I think in the end you have to say this is the decision, and don't look back, just forward."

Yup. Plus, it's hard to see enlisting in the U.S. Army for six years as a very bad move for my DS. Still, need to think this through, especially regarding the age.
 
Great points, eljay60. Thank you very much. Will give this some serious thought with DS. Going to move slowly here.

DS: He taught himself to read at 2-3 y.o. At kindergarten age we applied to a smart-kids private school (didn't end up sending him there) which required an IQ test for application. Cost us $250 bucks. The analyst gave him 151+ IQ. I think that might be a little high, but I know he's smarter than me. Anyway, he went to another school we liked better. He skipped 1st grade at the school's suggestion (in retrospect, probably a mistake.) Fast forward:he got V770, M750 on SAT, after studying for it only a few hours. He got a 5 on AP Calc AB, 4 on AP Chem, etc. and will finish high school with about 28 credits or so. He is not an academic overachiever because studying and turning homework in has been like getting teeth pulled for the last six years: not his cup of tea. Result: grades are just "okay". He is a well-balanced boy (Scout 1st Class, HS baseball team, HS cross country team, lots of hiking and backpacking, farm labor/construction labor/restaurant work on the resume, member of city astronomy club, etc.) He's not at all skewed towards books/academics. He picked George Mason economics out of considerable interest, but doesn't really want to go through with it now.

I think I'm going to print out this thread and laminate it when it finally ends. DS can read it years from now and laugh about it: "Boy did I make a mistake/do the right thing when I enlisted/went ROTC!" Thank you all again so very much for these insights and pieces of advice.

By academic overachiever I didn't necessarily mean the grades he comes home with, but how quickly he understands the material presented to him. My college roommate was gifted in math; while she attended every class she only did the assigned problems before the tests because it was so easy for her. (This was 40 years ago when the only evaluations that counted for a college course were papers, projects, midterms and finals.) My guess is the incremental pace of high school (where no child can be left behind) probably drove him nuts. George Mason will be different. He really needs to have a serious talk with an ROO about if and how the AROTC can be adapted for him, and not just the enlisted recruiter. I knew a brilliant young man who took courses during high school and summers and a heavy load in college; he graduated high school in 2014 and got his baccalaureate (and the Dean's list) in December of 2016. Perhaps something like that could be arranged for your son.

And as a 17 year old, this IS your decision as well. He can't enlist without a guardian's signature. Like it or not, you will be directly involved in his decision to ship out at the ripe old age of 208 months old (assuming he turns 17 around February 1 and ships out around June 1.). Good luck.
 
Your DS reminds me so much of my DS. I recall him being in 1st grade and during their required reading time he read the Hobbit. The teacher took it away saying that no way could he comprehend that level. He came home in tears from school that day. I marched in the next day and said to the teacher ask him to read 1 chapter and explain it to you. He did and she relented. By the the 1st day of 3rd grade the teacher stated there was nothing she could teach him this year, he was already in the IGNITE program (aka gifted) and she recommended he jump to 4th. To enter the IGNITE program they did a 4 hr IQ test. His IQ was 152. We did not jump him because we felt that it was not a fit for him.

FFWD to middle school. Our DS was smart enough to figure out how many homework assignments he didn't have to hand in to still pull an A in the class. Imagine the fights in our home when I saw missing 23 hws! I was teaching at this point, and explained it was an insult to the teacher and us to not do the hw. It fell on deaf ears.

FFWD to HS. Same thing! He graduated with a ton of APs and also did Jump Start at the local CC as a senior. He took the SAT and ACT cold. Never studied one minute. He took the SAT once and pulled a 1490. He took the ACT once and pulled a 33 or 34 (can't recall).
During this time we kept saying to him that unlike your siblings where they had to study, he was going to have big issues in college. He never had to study. He did have a wake up call in college. Nothing bad, but the OMG, I needed a 3.2 for my merit, and I got a 3.197 (they didn;t round up) and he received a letter stating he was on their watch list.

Just saying that don't compare this educational life to college.
 
I was enlisted for 10 years as an NCO, and for the last 16 I have been a commissioned officer.
I loved being enlisted, and the lessons taught to me by NCO's guide my judgement as an officer.
However, your son is in for a rude awakening. If he plans to ever be commissioned, it is a much harder path to enlist first.
I think it's a poor idea. Also, whatever bonus he gets will be parsed over his enlistment, and then automatically (before he even gets it) taxed at 25%.
Also, as a private, nobody will care that he has a 151 IQ, or that he "could have been an officer". His job will be to perform tasks that are delegated by NCO's. One thing that NCO's do not appreciate is a lower enlisted person with a 151 IQ telling them their processes are all out of whack and how they can streamline things.
I have seen this many times over my career.
Sometimes people have to learn the hard way.
 
Statements I have never heard in over 30 years of service.
"I really wish I had enlisted instead of becoming an officer."
"I'm really glad I passed up my opportunity to become an officer."

OS
 
My DS has been waiting for the AROTC scholarship 2nd board results. But he is now intending to enlist in the Army instead when he graduates from high school in June. He hopes for MOS 35P (linguist) or second choice 35G (geospatial analyst). He'll be taking the ASVAB and DLAB ASAP (Feb, March) and ship not long after graduation. At least that's the plan that is taking shape right now. We're about to set the ASVAB/MEPS date with the recruiter. The DLAB comes later.

He just doesn't want to go to college right now. Profile: he turns seventeen in a few days. He's sharp as a tack and has a resume of significan work experience (farm labor, construction labor, restaurant work). But he's not very interested in school right now. He aced the SAT and will do very well on the ASVAB and DLAB. Of course, DLI is a year of school and it's a 50-hour week of studying, but he's okay with that. It's only a year, not a four-year slog. Plus he likes languages. He's had four years of high school Chinese and has taught himself a smattering of Dutch and how to pronounce Korean writing.

Maybe when he's twenty or so he'll start going to college part time while he's still serving. He has been accepted by George Mason for the fall. Maybe someday in the future if he is stationed at Ft. Meade he can commute to Mason part time.

In short, DS is about to turn down the AROTC scholarship, if lucky enough to be offered it, and enlist instead. I wonder how many people in our country's history have done that. It's a little odd, but I'm happy with it. Is there anything I should be aware of? There is a sense of "What the heck is my DS doing? Just accept the scholarship, son, and be resolved to study whether you like it or not!" Actually, I'm looking forward to watching move forward with the enlistment adventure he's about to embark on. But should he reconsider? There is a lot of wisdom in this forum for which I'm grateful, so I thought I'd post.

My friends DD wanted to enlist. However when she was in HS I explained to her that what if she is injured later on and cannot continue with military as she wanted. Then what. It is far better imo to have something to be able to fall back on, and much harder to get degree later on in life when other obligations kick in. In addition, when you are that smart, you may want to consider that you may get frustrated as enlisted rather than going in as an officer. Just my opinion, but given current economy better to get the degree now, even if wont be using it right away. There are plenty of college units that take this commitment seriously, and many in them are similar to your son who thought of enlisting first, but in end, on this side of HS are happier now..
good luck either way, I know how hard it is as parent to watch our kids' decisions in spite of our opinions!
 
Great points, eljay60. Thank you very much. Will give this some serious thought with DS. Going to move slowly here.

DS: He taught himself to read at 2-3 y.o. At kindergarten age we applied to a smart-kids private school (didn't end up sending him there) which required an IQ test for application. Cost us $250 bucks. The analyst gave him 151+ IQ. I think that might be a little high, but I know he's smarter than me. Anyway, he went to another school we liked better. He skipped 1st grade at the school's suggestion (in retrospect, probably a mistake.) Fast forward:he got V770, M750 on SAT, after studying for it only a few hours. He got a 5 on AP Calc AB, 4 on AP Chem, etc. and will finish high school with about 28 credits or so. He is not an academic overachiever because studying and turning homework in has been like getting teeth pulled for the last six years: not his cup of tea. Result: grades are just "okay". He is a well-balanced boy (Scout 1st Class, HS baseball team, HS cross country team, lots of hiking and backpacking, farm labor/construction labor/restaurant work on the resume, member of city astronomy club, etc.) He's not at all skewed towards books/academics. He picked George Mason economics out of considerable interest, but doesn't really want to go through with it now.

I think I'm going to print out this thread and laminate it when it finally ends. DS can read it years from now and laugh about it: "Boy did I make a mistake/do the right thing when I enlisted/went ROTC!" Thank you all again so very much for these insights and pieces of advice.
As was mentioned in an earlier post, he can still go the rotc route the fist year and then decide, by deciding now, he may not have th options in front of him. Also, he doesn't have to go to George mason, he can pick another school with rotc, that's not written in stone when he applied.
 
My first Chief (E-7) was a rock star. He had earned a BS and two MS's while enlisted.
I pushed him really hard to become an officer.
He didn't want to start over at the bottom and really pushed back. He was very happy in his position and felt it was wrong for him.
I convinced him to apply.
He just started his last tour as an O-6.
Every conversation we've had since his commission has started with "Thank you."
I share the story to highlight there are many paths to officer.
I agree it's not for everyone, but passing on an opportunity this early needs to be thoughtfully processed.
OS
 
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